


Midwest Fest

by meganphntmgrl



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: 'you betcha', Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe- Modern Day, F/M, Hall's Vitamin C Defense Drops, Let Me Tell You My Thoughts About Hamilton: An American Musical (2015), M/M, Minnesota, Minnesota Nice, Multi, Music Festival, Unsanitary warning, con crud, emetophobia warning, fyre festival au lmao, ice mummy boy LIVES, inappropriate penguin-adjacent behavior, inconsistent genderswapping, other relationships and characters will be added as they appear, that blue stuff in port-a-potties, the worst terror AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meganphntmgrl/pseuds/meganphntmgrl
Summary: When everything that could possibly go wrong at a high-concept luxury music festival in the snowy wilds of northern Minnesota does with a vengeance, can the world’s crankiest, hard-drinkingest coordinator and a talent wrangler with more issues than he lets on make sure the show can go on?Probably not! But God help them, they’re going to try.





	1. Hit the North

    The customs assigned to this particular gate at the airport in the Twin Cities. where the first leg of what Francis Crozier had already determined to be a dire slog into the middle of nowhere had just concluded, was such a pull from a casting call for Minnesota Nice that he found himself half-expecting a cord to trail out of her pants leg and betray her for one of those ridiculous animatronics at Disney World. Surely no one _actually_ spoke like this?

    “Heavens to Betsy!” she said, glancing over his passport. “All the way from England. It sure is nice to have you in the States, Mr. Cro-zee-ay.”  
    “Crozier,” he corrected, with the hard R intact and fighting the urge to sigh. He knew his poor mood wasn’t the fault of the rosy-cheeked, plump woman in front of him, whose only real crimes were trying to do her probably relentlessly dull job with a smile on her face, seeing as he had decided he was relieved by her failure to pick up on the discrepancy between his passport and his accent, but God only knew how much of a trial her cartoon moose-head lapel pin was making it.

    “Is it now? Well, gosh, I’m sorry, I thought it was French, you know? Like our buddies up in Canada. We get a lot of those in here, you know.”  
    “Yeah, I imagine,” said Crozier, who wasn’t sure what else to say.  
    “Yeah,” said the customs agent.

    Crozier smiled wanly. The customs agent faltered, though her smile didn’t, and pushed a stray bit of dry strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear.

     “Well, anyway, what brings you to the states, Mr. Crozier?”  
     “Spending my full duty-free allowance on whiskey,” he said wearily.  
     “Good grief!”  
     “That- that was a joke,” he muttered, rubbing one of his tired and aching-as-usual eyes. “It’s business.”  
     “Oh, yeah, I see. Anything to declare?”  
     “My time of death, probably.”  
     “Oh, Mr. Crozier! The boys must just _love_ you at the local watering hole back home.”  
     “...yeah,” he said vaguely.  
     “Yeah,” she said brightly. “Well, here you go, Mr. Crozier. You enjoy your trip now, okay?”

     She passed him back his passport and the carbon from the back of his customs form (“Oop! Here you are, Mr. Crozier!”), and with that he was free to put his sunglasses back on and continue down the ramp toward the baggage claim. A sign posted between the steel-and-glass doors warned that this was the point of no return.

    Crozier hated American airports and their commitment to being simultaneously federally ominous and aggressively locally friendly and inviting. Heathrow wasn’t much better, but at least Heathrow wasn’t full of moose motifs.

    As he reached the baggage claim, he reached into his pocket and switched airplane mode off on his phone. The phone searched for a signal and then, very abruptly, updated from GMT to central time and latched onto the American network he had arranged to cover him during this whole misadventure. A moment later, there was a soft ding, and a message appeared on the screen.

     _Thinking of you. Be safe._

    Crozier smiled unhappily and dismissed it, then unlocked his phone and dialed.

    “Hello, Tom. It’s Francis-“  
    “Sir! Have you landed yet?”  
    “I’m at the baggage claim.”  
    “Really?”  
    “Yes,” said Crozier, subconsciously frowning, though more in confusion at the need for a clarification than in irritation.  
    “Oh,” said Tom. “Well, that’s convenient. So am I.”  
  
      Crozier looked around, bewildered, until he laid eyes on a much younger man- his assistant, Thomas Jopson- excitedly waving from the other end of the carousel and promptly hung up his phone as he hurried over.

     “When did you get here? We weren’t on the same flight, were we?”  
    “I think I landed about half an hour before you,” said Tom. “They still haven’t put out my luggage- lucky you got here too, I can help you get it to the cab-”     
    “Don’t worry about it, Tommy,” Crozier cut in. “You’ll be having your own luggage to worry about, and my back could use the stretch after that flight.”  
    “You’ve got to pay me for something, sir,” Tom protested.  
    “So you’ll call us an Uber,” said Crozier, with as close to a warm smile as he was able to give at a time like this. “Tommy, we both know you’ll be enjoying this whole affair far more than I will.”  
    “I hope you don’t hate it that much,” said Tom.     
    “It doesn’t matter if I do,” Crozier said with a shrug. “I know my duties, and I intend to do them. And if you’re worried about fulfilling yours, I trust you already took care of that request I made for the hotel room.”

    He gave Tom a sidelong look. Tom pressed his lips together unhappily and moved to brush a fall of floppy dark hair out of his downcast gray-blue eyes.

    “Of course, sir.”  
    “Good man,” said Crozier.

    There was a sudden shrieking alarm noise, which startled them both, but it turned out to be nothing more than an alert that the luggage from both of their flights was now on its way up the ramp to the carousel, and as it began trundling heavily into view both men went looking for their suitcases.

***

    It took about thirty minutes after their Uber arrived to reach the hotel in downtown Minneapolis. They passed what looked like some kind of vast warehouse just after leaving the airport, which the driver, who could not really be blamed for the effect this had on Crozier, explained was the Mall of America. Tom was thankfully enthusiastic and curious enough for the both of them. 

   As they pulled off into the city proper, Crozier pulled out his phone again and opened up the message from the airport.

_Thinking of you. Be safe._

    In the little circular portrait above the chain of messages was a blonde in sunglasses. Crozier had taken the picture himself last fall, on his last visit to the US. Sophia Cracroft had been caught unawares by a bird landing on her shoulder in the Central Park Zoo, and he had just barely reacted in time to capture her startled laugh and assign it as her contact photo.

   He didn’t scroll up to read the others. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that yet. He was very nearly angry at the newest one, for that matter, but on some level, he had already decided that he had no right to feel anything at that intensity where Sophia was concerned now without treading on her in one way or another, so he simply texted back:

_Will try._

   “What are those things between the buildings?” Tom asked as he peered out the window. “Covered walkways?”  
   “That’s the Skyway,” said the driver. “It gets hot out here in the summer and dead cold in the winter. Keeps people comfortable walking around the downtown. I reckon it’s getting cold enough now that some people’re already using ‘em in the evenings, especially with that snow coming on this weekend.”  
   “Oh, yes,” said Tom. “We’ve been keeping a close eye on the reports. We’re actually going a bit further north the day after tomorrow.”  
   “Further north? What business have you got up there?”

   Tom looked at Crozier with shy, deferential pride, and Crozier realized he was being prompted to speak.

   Tom was lucky he liked him, Crozier thought.

    “It’s… a music festival,” he said haltingly, with a bit of a cringe. “John Franklin’s festival. He’s put it together; I’m just… coordinating things.”  
    “Which things?”

    Crozier could literally feel a new headache coming on.

    “...everything but the talent,” he said finally.  
    “John Franklin?” the driver repeated. “The airplane guy?”  
    “Yeah,” said Crozier. “Him.”  
    “Didn’t he try to do that charity thing a few years back-”  
    “Yeah,” Crozier said a little more firmly. “ _Him_.” 

   In the mirror, the driver’s eyes looked doubtful.

   “Mmm,” he said. “Good luck with that, y’all.”

    Crozier smiled. It was not particularly convincing.

 

***

 

    At the hotel, Crozier was relieved to see that Tom had indeed handled things as promised and ensured a fully stocked minibar in his boss’s room, full of the best Breckenridge  Crozier could afford. Even these tiny bottles had cost more than he was comfortable fully acknowledging outside of his bank register, but he would only have two nights in this hotel anyway and had already arranged for a decent supply of Firefly at the festival itself. If he had to come to America, the least he could do was dull himself to it all on American whiskey.

   The festival was going to be smaller than most, and fairly exclusive. The cold climate ensured that they would be hosting only some 550 guests, with the first 133 people- Crozier, Tom, John Franklin himself, and Franklin’s omnipresent lapdog James Fitzjames included- shipping off in buses the day after tomorrow to settle in. The VIP guests would be able to enjoy the ice camp that had already been mostly set up the previous week for a few days before the talent started arriving, the staff would have a chance to finish that setting-up, and aside from everyone presumably having to bumble along in parkas it seemed like a great time as long as your name wasn’t Francis Crozier.

   Nobody back home ever called him Frank save his friend Jim Ross, and that was more Jim’s personal stubborn friendliness. Not even Sophia had done that. He was “sir” to Tom, though he had tried to break him of that habit, Mr. Crozier to most, and Francis to the handful of people whom he had given that okay and another handful who felt they had the right to do so whether he liked it or not. He was in his early fifties, not old but decidedly- to himself, anyway- no longer young, a bit craggy in the face in a way that tended to incline more toward puffiness from the drinking, pale-eyed and sandy-haired and stocky. Most people didn’t notice him much unless he was wielding authority over them or was scowling at them, and those categories tended to intersect on a Venn diagram of Crozier Moods.

   After a quick trip into the hallway to find the nearest ice machine, Crozier settled in to pour himself a highball of one of the mid-range Breckinridges from the minibar. Behind the wall of little whiskey bottles, the hotel had provided the more typical- and not yet paid for, unlike the whiskey- bar offerings, in what looked like the sample size version of the bar at a chain restaurant. Crozier grimaced- he could fall back on the Jack Daniels if he went through the Breckinridge before they bused up North, but the Stoli and Kahlua back there might as well have been piss for all they interested him. Crozier may have been a drunk, but he was a _particular_ drunk, and he prided himself on not having touched a drop of anything else in years.

  Crozier’s brain was still running on GMT and as far as that was was concerned, it was already pushing 11 PM despite the bedside clock in his hotel room announcing 4:47 in fever-bright red letters. He found his iPad in his carryon and thumbed through the schedule for the upcoming week, sipping comfortably at the Breckinridge until he felt a little more at ease, and eventually set the glass aside on his nightstand and allowed himself to slip into a much-needed, booze-assisted sleep.

***

   The penguins were smaller than Crozier had expected. He also hadn’t expected them to waddle as much as they did, but they had a uniquely steady gracelessness as they maneuvered over the rocks before diving into the pool, where they seemed to suddenly transform into little torpedoes and skim effortlessly through the water.

    “I always thought that was a joke they made up for cartoons,” he said as he watched one of them waddle forward at such speed that it threatened to overbalance- but when it did, it simply toppled forward onto its belly and slid into the water.  
   “Why would they make that up?” Sophia asked, laughing a little and displaying a few bright teeth in the process.  
   “Oh, you know,” said Crozier. “Like Bugs Bunny eating carrots.”  
   “That was because in the second world war, the English wanted the Nazis to believe their pilots were using carrots to see in the dark, so they wouldn’t suspect they had radar.”  
   “All right,” Crozier conceded, “that part I did _not_ know-“  
   “How about ‘what’s up, Doc’ being a Clark Gable joke?” Sophia said teasingly, pushing him in the sternum with her first and middle fingers.  
   “God Almighty, woman, how old do you think I _am_?”

    Crozier was laughing, but he could not quite conceal the genuine worry in his voice. Sophia was a perfectly respectable thirty-two, but to Crozier, who was fairly certain he had been forty since he was twelve, the gap between them sometimes seemed to suddenly expand into an outright chasm.

   “I learned it playing Trivial Pursuit,” Sophia protested. “Francis, you don’t need to be so sensitive.”

   Her hand had paused in that same gentle prodding position, but in her concern over having offended him, it opened up and began gently caressing him instead. Crozier smiled unhappily and tried to relax his shoulders.

    “You know I want you, don’t you?”  
    “I know,” said Crozier. “I know.”

    Sophia affectionately lay her head on his shoulder and her hand on his thigh. The penguin house was deserted this time of day- just after noon on a Wednesday in November- which meant that unless a group of schoolchildren were to arrive, they had the upholstered bench at the back of the viewing room to themselves.  Crozier pushed his fingers into Sophia’s hair and gently rubbed beneath it, and she turned her face up toward his.

    Crozier leaned toward her, his lips parted, when there was a thumping sound from the penguin tank. He turned in annoyance.

    A penguin bobbed in the water, smacking its chubby flippers against the glass and producing a far heavier and more wooden sound than he expected.

    “Sir?” said the penguin, its voice oddly muffled by the glass. “It’s Tom-“

 

***

 

    Crozier’s eyes popped open. The hotel nightstand clock said 7:37.

    “Sir?” Tom Jopson called from the hallway. “Mr. Crozier?”

    Crozier sat up, able to feel the frown tightening in his forehead as he tried to orient himself in the dim light coming from around the locked room door. He could make out two little shadows moving back and forth in the lowest crack of light- Tom’s feet, probably.

   “What is it?” he called. “Hotel on fire or something?”  
   “Uh, I tried to call you to remind you, but you didn’t pick up,” said Tom.  
   “Remind me about what?”  
   “The VIP party, sir,” said Tom. “At eight-“

    Crozier’s eyes widened in the dark.

    “Oh, shit,” he said out loud. Despite the pounding in his head, he hurried over to the door- feeling not unlike a penguin himself- and flipped the light on to figure out how to undo the lock. Outside in the hallway, Tom stood there holding his phone and looking both worried and sheepish at the same time.

    “Oh, good, you’re up-“  
    “I wouldn’t call it good,” said Crozier, “but I’m up.”

    He gestured for Tom to come in. Crozier wasn’t proud of how often he had to rely on his assistant to find suitable clothes for these kinds of events, let alone how often Tom had to handle the buttons because Crozier’s hands were either disobediently slow from drink or trembling from having gone too long without it, but at times like these he was glad to have Tom’s help.

   “God damn it,” he muttered. “I don’t understand why Franklin needs me at this thing anyway. My end’s all business.”  
   “So’s Fitzjames’s, sir,” Tom pointed out. “He’ll be there too.”  
   “Good God,” Crozier said. “Don’t remind me.”  
   “Sorry about that, sir. Do you need help shaving?”  
   “Don’t worry about it,” said Crozier. “Knowing this crowd, they’ll think it’s designer stubble.”

    Tom laughed and pushed his own stubbornly floppy dark hair out of his eyes. “Wouldn’t put it past them, sir.”  
    “Tom?”  
    “Yes, sir?”  
    “You really don’t have to call me sir.”  
    “Oh,” said Tom. “Sorry, sir.”

 

***

 

   Crozier and Tom made it to the party at the rooftop atrium by a respectable 8:14 pm. For a few blessed minutes, Crozier believed his absence had gone unmissed in the flurry of noisy Americans and pop music, and he took advantage of this by ordering a glass of whiskey at the bar, leaning against it to watch the others in morose annoyance and trying not to be noticed.

   “ _Francis_!” a decidedly un-American voice called over the thumping bass.

    Crozier winced. So much for that. He looked around to see which direction he’d been addressed from until he laid eyes on John Franklin waving at him from a good six meters away, surrounded by the usual suspects and hangers-on. Crozier smiled thinly and went to join them.

   “I was starting to fear you wouldn’t make it,” said Franklin, the producer behind the festival, as he reached out to thump Crozier between the shoulders with a big hand he probably intended to be affectionate. It made Crozier’s whiskey slosh. “Good to see you, old boy.”  
   “Hello, Francis,” said James Fitzjames, Franklin’s talent wrangler, smiling crookedly and obsequiously as ever from halfway behind what Crozier was fairly certain was a heavily iced-down Kahlua.  
   “James,” Crozier said vaguely.  
   “How was the flight?” Franklin asked, with his characteristically vapid, friendly smile.  
   “Long,” said Crozier.

   Fitzjames lifted his eyebrows and glanced sideways at Franklin but said nothing.

   “Ah,” said Franklin. “You must have come all the way-“  
   “From Heathrow, yes.”  
   “That would explain it. James and I had a stopover in New York for a few days to manage some of the remaining business-“  
   “Well, and I personally made time for _Hamilton_ ,” Fitzjames cut in, laughing. “Have you seen that one yet?”  
   “Er, no,” said Crozier.  
   “You know, I got to see it at the Public, before anyone knew what a thing it was going to be,” Fitzjames said eagerly, with an expressively haughty spread of the hand across his chest that also conveniently displayed a gold Swatch. “Comped, of course. It went through a pretty interesting series of changes. I kind of miss the old logo, but when I told Lin about that, he was already stuck on the new one.”  
   “Of course,” Crozier groaned. He was beginning to wonder if he could push Fitzjames into the in-ground swimming pool a short distance away and successfully make it look like an accident. He looked a little helplessly at Franklin, but Franklin was nodding along with Fitzjames’s bragging like a pageant mother watching her daughter talk about her desire for world peace.  
   “I could ask after getting you a ticket-“  
   “That’s all right, said Crozier, holding up a hand. “Uh, John-“    
   “I find it _deeply_ impressive that it maintained momentum into a larger venue,” Fitzjames pressed on. “Haven’t had a chance to see it in any of its secondary productions, personally, though I assume the production design adapts itself fairly well to different spaces.”

  Crozier was this close to stomping on John Franklin’s foot to get his attention.

  “Of course, I’m not a very theatrical animal to begin with myself,” Fitzjames continued, “unless you count messing around in college-“  
  “James,” said Crozier, “with all due respect, I would rather jump out of that window over there at full speed than listen to you talk about _Hamilton_ right now.”

  Franklin’s attention was momentarily torn from his star pupil to look at Crozier in offended shock.

  “Francis,” he began. “Are you feeling quite all right?”  
  “No,” said Crozier. “I’m not.”

   Fitzjames, too, was staring at him, eyes widened and chin lifted in a mixture of deep offense and wounded dignity. He was a good number of years Crozier’s junior, pale, dark-eyed and almost ludicrously broad-jawed, with wavy dark hair in an elaborate overgrown haircut that Crozier suspected he had trimmed weekly to give a constant impression of not having cut it in three months. Even if the man had had any personality whatsoever beyond name-dropping and talking about his prior “adventures”, as he called them, that in itself- that and his ludicrous name, which _had_ to be some kind of branding affectation- would probably have been enough for Crozier to dislike him immediately. Fitzjames held that look for a long moment, his mouth seeming to droop as a whole toward that jaw of his in a petulant tilted slash of disappointment, before he forced a smile again and lifted his glass.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”  
  “I’m going to get another glass,” said Crozier, who nodded at Franklin in vague apology before turning away and sliding back through the crowd to the bar. The other two men watched him for a moment in silence- Franklin surprised, Fitzjames more than a little miffed.

   “All right,” he said. “Can I be blunt?  
   “Of course,” said Franklin.  
   “What hole did you dig him out of?”

    This was not the response Franklin had been expecting, and it showed. The smile dropped entirely from his weathered face and was swiftly replaced by a rather patronizing frown of concern. Insipid and patronizing were, in fact, John Franklin’s two chief ways of maneuvering through life. You got used to it- or, in Fitzjames’s case, overlooked it entirely.

   “I mean it,” said Fitzjames. “Is he really a friend of yours, or did you just promise him this gig while he was dating your _niece_?”  
   "I would trust Francis with my life,” Franklin said evenly.  
   “Yeah, well,” said Fitzjames. “I find it hard to trust anyone who willingly goes by _Francis_ to begin with. Especially not with something like this. I swear to God, that man is where fun goes to die-“  
   “Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?” Franklin asked. “He’s here because I asked him to come, just like I asked you.”  
   “I just don’t understand,” Fitzjames said, finishing his drink. “It’s like he _wants_ to be miserable- and that’s not even getting into the drinking. What’s the point of drinking like he does if he’s not even going to _enjoy_ it?”  
  “James-“  
  “All right.” Fitzjames held up a hand in surrender. “I’ll stop. I just- Christ. I don’t know. He gets under my skin.”  
  “I know Francis is… not easy to get along with,” Franklin said, “but I need you to give him a chance. He’s one of the best event organizers I’ve ever worked with, and none of us would be here without him.”  
  “I know,” Fitzjames conceded. “I know, I know.”  
  “It’s only for a few days,” Franklin reminded him. “Just… er. Be cool, be wild, and be groovy, as it were, and all will be well.”

   Their guests were clearly already having a good time- more than one person had already jumped into the pool fully clothed, and a number of them had been dancing from the time the doors had opened at 7:30. This was supposed to be fun, Fitzjames reminded himself, and he would not allow Francis Crozier’s rotten mood to become contagious.

  Fitzjames grinned despite himself and nodded at the soon-to-be-late John Franklin, among the thumping bass and whooping guests.

  “Of course.”

  What could possibly go wrong?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic started off as essentially a joke post on Tumblr and somehow along the way went from pure shitpost fodder to something more along the lines of “Fargo” (which has ended up a big tonal inspiration here even aside from the Minnesota-ness of it all) and “The Venture Brothers”. I promise that the other characters will show up in good time!
> 
> Special thanks for this chapter go to @skazka for his input on Minnesotan accents and geography, the barista at the Caribou Coffee location in the Minneapolis-St Paul airport who served me at about 7 AM in May 2011 who directly inspired the customs agent, and @fitzjames_en on Twitter, who first gave the world Sir John Franklin advising James Fitzjames to “be cool, be wild, and be groovy”.


	2. What Are You Looking At, Dicknose?

Every time the kid threw up, there was a splash of blue antiseptic liquid from inside the Port-a-Potty that threatened to hit him in the face, and Harry Goodsir winced despite himself.

“Holy buckets,” said Harry.

“Sorry, Doctor,” the kid- John Torrington, Harry was pretty sure- gasped. “I think I’m almost-“

He hurled again, and violently, having to catch himself on the seat with both hands spread all the way open. Goodsir died inside just a little and hoped that nobody had managed to use it since the last time it had been cleaned. Considering this was a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, the odds were either very high or very low, and he wasn’t sure which.

“I’m really sorry-“

“There’s another bus back down to the Twin Cities in a couple of hours,” Harry pointed out. “I can arrange for you to get a refund. It’s no fault of yours-“

“I won my ticket in a student raffle,” said Torrington. 

“Oh,” said Harry.

Then: “Aw, jeeze.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

There was another round of hurling to go, apparently. Harry stood back, feeling a little helpless as he watched the kid- who was probably at least twenty, but at 28 Harry felt being a medical professional granted him the right to think of people five years older than he was as “kids”, a state of affairs that was aided by his practically sentient and assertive beard- practically convulse over the open pit of the Port-a-Potty tank.

“It’s okay,” said Harry. “And you don’t have to call me ‘doctor’- I’m only an EMT, you know.”

“Right- sorry, doctor,” Torrington blurted, right before spewing one more load into the toilet and making Harry have to look away altogether.

“Everything alright over here?” a third voice cut in.

Harry gingerly opened his eyes. One of the higher-ups on the organizing- Crozier, he was pretty sure his name was- was standing there in snow boots and a down coat, looking concerned in that highly professional, nothing-personal sort of way Harry had come to generally associate with authority figures but found a little intimidating when it came to this kind of thing.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Harry. “He’s having a pretty rough time in there.”

Torrington puked and groaned. Harry’s smile went a little pained, and Crozier winced.

“Uh,” Crozier said, rapping on the side of the port-a-potty with one knuckle. 

“I’ll be out in a minute,” John Torrington protested.

“Oh, don’t you rush yourself,” Harry cut in. “We just don’t want you going to the festival feeling so under the weather.”

He gave Crozier a rather embarrassed look. Crozier was still wincing.

“You’re a local, then?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry, relieved that that’s all it was. “Well, sort of. I was hired back in Minneapolis, you know, and we’re about thirty miles outside Duluth right now, so not  _ super  _ local. I’m an EMT.”

Crozier stared at him like he was watching a dog walk on his hind legs. 

“You people really do talk like that, don’t you?” he asked, in a low, wondering voice.

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry, who then immediately blushed behind his beard and cleared his throat.

John Torrington came out of the Port-a-Potty looking like death warmed over, his blond hair limp with sweat as he rubbed under the rubber bracelet on one wrist.

“I don’t feel so good, Doctor.”

“No kidding,” said Harry. “Here, let me borrow you some Purel-“

Torrington held out his hands and Harry quickly dispensed a little squirt of hand sanitizer, which the kid accepted gratefully. While he was rubbing them together and trying to figure out how to get it under his bracelet, a fourth figure approached, causing Crozier to immediately roll his eyes again.

“Is everything alright?” Fitzjames asked. He was wearing an undoubtedly hideously expensive woolen trench,  with a sweater visible underneath at his neck and a hat pulled down low enough to force his hair into his eyes. His gloves, however, were fingerless, which was currently allowing him to open a Hall’s Vitamin C drop and pop it into his mouth.

“I don’t know, James, what does it look like?” said Crozier, gesturing at Torrington.

Torrington waved weakly and promptly buckled at the knees, which made Fitzjames somehow manage to squint and widen his eyes at the same time while Harry swooped in and caught him under the armpits.

“Aw, jeeze-“

“I’m okay, I promise,” Torrington protested.

“You absolutely are not!” Crozier said fiercely. “We’ve already got three other guests who are in no state to deal with the conditions we’re staring down booked for a ride back to the Twin Cities. I’m sorry, son, but we’re going to have to send you back with them.”

“And miss the festival?” Torrington asked, his pale little blond brows bending in tragic bows of disappointment.

Fitzjames popped another Hall’s for good measure, threw Crozier a look, and then put a comforting hand on Torrington’s skinny shoulder as Harry helped the kid steady himself again.

“I know you must be terribly disappointed,” he said. “I understand that. I promise that I will pull whatever strings must be pulled to make it up to you and the other three when all of this is over, all right?”

“What kind of-“

“ _ Trust me _ ,” said Fitzjames. “I’m a  _ champion _ string-puller. Now go gather your things, and we’ll get you safe back.”

He smiled and gave that same shoulder a thump. As the boy wandered off, Fitzjames gave Crozier a supremely smug grin of achievement. 

Crozier flipped him off. The smile fell, and Fitzjames pointedly turned his attention back to Harry, who had been standing there with the general posture of a pangolin for the last few minutes.

“Thank you for your help, doctor,” he said. “Stanley, is it?”

“Oh, no,” Harry said. “Stanley’s reading on the bus at the moment.”

“He’s an EMT, James,” Crozier sighed, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a silver flask. “He mentioned it just before you arrived.”

“Harry Goodsir,” Harry volunteered, holding out his hand. Crozier smiled politely but continued with his drink, leaving Fitzjames to rather ostentatiously take the hint himself and energetically pump Harry’s arm up and down.

“James Fitzjames,” he said. “Welcome aboard. This is my, ah,  _ counterpart _ , Francis Crozier.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Harry said, looking between them both a little bemusedly and wondering to himself if  _ counterpart  _ meant  _ ex _ .

***

When it was time for everyone- save the unfortunate John Torrington and three others whose names Harry hadn’t caught- to get back on the buses that were to continue out to the ice camp, Harry was dismayed to find that his earlier seat at the back of the bus was now taken by a whole cluster of people who had spread out over it as though they owned the place.

“Aw, jeeze,” he sighed to himself. This was quickly followed by “oh well”, and he sat down in the right-hand window seat in the aisle in front of them instead.

“Ugh,” said the woman behind him.

Harry turned around in his seat, offended but mostly curious as to how he could have possibly offended her in turn, and instead saw that the speaker- an impressively tall, rather broad-shouldered young woman in a pink parka- was looking at her phone and not him.

“What is it now, Maggie?” sighed a smallish, gingery-bearded man with a pointy face from the other end of the back row.

“My  _ period  _ is going to start while we’re out here,” the woman whined, turning her phone around to show the others the screen. “Look at what my tracker app says.”

“The hell is that?” asked a second man- blondish, his parka unzipped to display a t-shirt that read WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, DICKNOSE?

“It’s a period tracking app,” Maggie said. “I’m not so great with numbers, so this helps me keep track of them, and  _ apparently  _ I’m going to be dealing with that out here.”

“So?” said the pointy-faced man. “You got tampons, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s not going to be good for my  _ spiritual  _ energies-“

“Oh, here we go,” groaned What Are You Looking At Dicknose.

“Hey, hey,” said the pointy-faced man, with a placating gesture of his hands. Harry couldn’t help but notice that he was wearing the same kind of rubber bracelet as John Torrington on his right. “We don’t get periods. Maggie does. She knows more about this than we do.”

“Yeah,” said Maggie, with a fervent nod.

Harry rolled his eyes and settled back in, facing forward as the rest of the bus started filling up. He had closed his eyes and felt as though he might even get to nap when someone whacked him on the arm and startled him up again.

“Goodsir, wake up-“

“Holy  _ buckets _ -“

“Hey. Hey, I’m  _ talking  _ to you,” said Stephen Stanley, one of the appointed doctors to the trip as he shook Harry on the arm one more time. Harry pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked up at the older man in offended surprise.

“Oh, hey, Dr. Stanley,” said Harry. 

“Did you dismiss  _ four  _ of our guests on medical orders?” Stanley asked, though his tone was more “you dismissed four of our guests on medical orders, you absolute bastard.”

Harry’s mouth opened. Then he shut it. Then it was open again.

“I- well, actually, Dr. Stanley, I didn’t,” he said, with as much dignity as could be found between the arms of a neck pillow. “Crozier and Fitzjames did.”

“Did you tell them to talk to me?” Stanley retorted.

“Well, no,” said Harry. “You were busy reading.”

Stanley rolled his eyes. “Un-fucking-believable. Next time you want to make an executive decision around here, you run it by me, got it? These kinds of decisions are for  _ doctors _ , not  _ ambulance drivers _ .”

Harry stared him down.

“I think you’re a little bit confused there, doctor,” he said. “I’m not an ambulance driver. I’m an EMT.”

Behind him, the pointy-faced man whistled in approval. Stanley shot them both a dirty look and found a seat far away from them both. Harry leaned back again, quietly satisfied in the moment, but the man crossed over and squeezed in beside Maggie.

“Hey,” he said. “That was pretty cool just now.”

“Thanks,” said Harry.

“So you’re an EMT, huh?” the pointy-faced man asked. “Does that mean you’re going for free?”

“Wha- oh, yeah,” said Harry, and he turned just enough in his seat to grin at the other man.

“Sweet deal,” said the pointy-faced man. Behind him, Maggie was back at her phone and What Are You Looking At Dicknose had pulled out an issue of  _ Soldier of Fortune _ . “I won mine in an office raffle. Sol’s on security.”

What Are You Looking At Dicknose gave a little salute without looking up.

“Oh, neat,” said Harry. 

“Cornelius Hickey,” said the pointy-faced man, holding out his hand. Harry again noticed the rubber bracelet- but plenty of people had rubber bracelets, right?

He shook Hickey’s hand.

“That sure is a different name you got there, isn’t it?” Harry asked, impressed.

“Eh, I didn’t pick it,” said Hickey. “It just happened that way.”

He grinned at his own joke, displaying surprisingly prominent front teeth. Harry laughed too.

“Harry Goodsir. I’d say I hope to see you around the festival, but with me being an EMT and all, maybe that one isn’t such a good idea!”

Hickey grinned.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other. Trust me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tozer’s t-shirt was suggested by Tumblr user jamesfitzjames. I told you I would make it canon.
> 
> Everything Goodsir-related in this entire story owes a debt to my brother Brent, who is a real-life EMT and my unofficial consultant in medical matters for this fic in general. Also, never call an EMT an ambulance driver. Ever.


	3. Another Bright Red Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I was working on this chapter, Sam "Waluwadjet" Million, who was one of the biggest cheerleaders for this story and a warm, wonderful friend and human being in general, passed away very suddenly on September 26, 2018.
> 
> I would like to retroactively dedicate this story to him. This one's for you, buddy.

“Well, think of it this way, Harry,” said James Fitzjames as he uncrossed his legs and proceeded to cross them again, trading which leg was over and which was under while displaying probably the most expensive-looking and shiny pair of knee-high snow boots Harry had ever seen. He had to flick his long hair from the corner of his eye with a quick head-toss to get a proper look at Harry. “No news is good news when it comes to this sort of thing, is it not?”

It was late in the afternoon on the first day of the settling-in period for the VIP passholders, and so far everything had gone off without a hitch. The main food trucks for the later guests and the festival proper hadn’t arrived yet, but there was enough to feed everyone present their choice of meals from the pre-planned menu and the two generators that had been brought so far roared along comfortably, keeping everyone’s devices charged and the dome village warm. With nothing to do but wait, Harry had hung around in his medical tent for a few hours, on call with his laptop, while Dr. Stanley disappeared off to God knew where with a Stephen King novel under one arm. So it went, until Fitzjames arrived like a bolt from the blue, smelling strongly of a mixture of some kind of fancy cologne and citrus, with a crooked grin and a pile of board games.

 

“Oh, don’t I know it,” said Harry. “I just feel sort of useless, that’s all. Uh, G-7?”

“That’s a hit,” Fitzjames murmured, mouth pursing for a moment. “So much for my aircraft carrier.”

“I’ve got a big family, Mr. Fitzjames,” Harry said. He punctuated this with a little thump on the chest, over his heart. “You don’t grow up a Goodsir without getting real good at Battleship.”

“Clearly,” Fitzjames said as he picked a red peg from the box. “That’s two ships down already.”

“For now,” said Harry.

 

Fitzjames laughed at that one.

 

“You know,” he said, “you don’t have to call me mister anything.”

“What would you like me to call you, then?”

 

Fitzjames looked up from his board with his hands spread helplessly.

 

“...James will suffice?”

“Right,” said Harry. “Sorry, I’ve just… never worked an event this size before, you know? I feel sort of… small, in all this.”

“You’re an important part of it,” James said, leaning back in his seat a little. Harry couldn’t fathom how Fitzjames- that was to say, James- wasn’t cold, but he seemed perfectly comfortable sitting there in a turtleneck sweater and a puffy vest, while Harry was snug in a long blue quilted parka. “Even if right now, the guests are content to sit around firepits and give each other interesting souvenir haircuts, people are inevitably going to need your help at some point as this thing takes off.”

“I know- wait, what? Did you say haircuts-“

“Someone brings out a beard trimmer and by the next morning half the group has undercuts,” said James, flicking his hand as though to wave off the idea. “Probably the same mentality when they start giving each other stick-and-poke tattoos, but blessedly less prone to infection.”

“Oh,” said Harry. His eyes had gone almost comically wide. “That’s different.”

“There’s usually Molly involved,” James said as he unpeeled something like a hard candy, which, judging from the smell, was the source of his general citrus aroma, and popped it into his mouth. “Usually, anyway. I trust you know all the euphemisms, doing this for a living. Care for a Hall’s?”

“I mean, of course, but- is that a cough drop?”

“Oh, heavens, no. Vitamin C, for immunity and all that. God only knows what’s catching out here.”

 

He waved his hand vaguely around the tent, in a gesture that was clearly intended to contain the whole snowy plain outside, too, and possibly the entire United States. Harry was about to respond in the negative when there came a sound from outside the tent of increasingly loud rap music, and of people singing along at matching volume.

 

“Y’all gonna make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here, y’all gonna make me go all out, up in here, up in here-“

 

To Harry’s mild alarm, and James’s apparent hearty amusement, John Franklin lifted the tent flap, awkwardly bouncing his hands above his head and trying to sing along.

 

“Y’all gonna make me act a fool, up in here, up in here- come along, James, join in-“

 

Harry brows hurried for cover under the loose curls of hair that had dropped over his forehead. James gave one half-hearted roof-raising before he had to cover his mouth, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. The group outside continued on their way without noticing Franklin had ever left them, though under the circumstances they might not have been sober enough to catch that he had ever been there.

 

“I think you’re enjoying yourself more than they are, John,” James said, half-muffled by his own hand. “Sorry, Harry- C-10?”

Oh, thank God, Harry thought. “That’ll be a miss, sorry.”

“Damn,” James murmured.

“James, why aren’t you out there enjoying the scenery?” Franklin asked as he pulled up a chair. The Battleship boards jumped as he scootched in. James automatically lay a hand over his little dish of game pieces to keep them from spilling. Harry had to scramble to catch a few of his, with a wild, half-formed thought that they couldn’t abandon him at a moment like this.

“...B-9?” Harry said cautiously.

“Miss,” said James. “I’m saving my energy for tonight, John. Hall’s?”

“No thank you,” said Franklin.

James shrugged and popped the offered C drop into his perpetually lopsided mouth as Franklin swung one unexpectedly gangly leg over the other and jarred the table again. This time both James and Harry lost a couple of pieces to the tabletop.

“E-10,” James said, looking up at Harry again.

“Oh, that’s a hit-”

“Yes!” James interjected with a fistpump. “Good show.”

“How about you, Dr. Goodsir?” Franklin asked. Harry noticed his eyes momentarily drop down to his name tag to be sure he’d gotten his name right. The confirmation that he had made Franklin smile like a particularly self-satisfied sloth.

“I sort of have to stay here, in one medical tent or the other,” said Harry. “I didn’t even pack a costume. And that’s real good of you, but I’m not a doctor. I’m an EMT.”

“Rescue squad,” James said quietly, before Franklin could ask what an EMT was outside of the US.

“Ah,” said Franklin. “Er- we did hire a doctor, didn’t we?”

“Three of them,” said James. “To my understanding MacDonald and Peddie are setting up in the other tent across the field. Where the hell is Stanley, anyway-“

“Knee-deep in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,” said Harry, who kept his “good riddance” to himself. His parents would have been proud.

“Just as well,” James responded. “He struck me as a man in a hurry to perform a field amputation. Speaking of mood-killers, what’s Crozier up to? Haven’t seen him since last night.”

“Francis is-“ Franklin began.

“Not that I particularly care,” James added.

 

It was Harry’s turn now, but he was too piqued by this sudden change of topic to interrupt as Franklin raised his voice a little and pressed on, “Francis is looking over the stage wiring with Blanky.”   
“Who?”  
“Ah- sorry. Tess Blenkinhorn. Old nickname of hers.”  
“Ah.”  
“James, I do hope you’re not planning to sustain this… glaciality where Francis is concerned through the whole event.”

“I promise, it will in no way affect my performance,” James said, his eyes fixed on his Battleship board like a real-life naval commander studying a map. “I’m not interested in starting a fight with him. I’d rather avoid him altogether, if I can help it. My job here is virtually done as it is.”

 

Harry’s sister was a big Downton Abbey fan. He’d never understood it himself, but watching British people very politely argue in real life was giving him a lot of insight, or so he figured.

 

“You know, if you’d had to send me home yesterday with the others,” Franklin said, folding his hands across his middle in a way that reminded Harry of a middle school principal, “you’d be answering to him.”

“If I’d had to- we both know you wouldn’t give this up for the world, John,” James protested. “It wouldn’t be my place to dismiss you to begin with. If anything, it would have been Harry’s here.”

 

Harry jumped. James clapped his hands down over both of their Battleship pieces this time.

 

“You guys are gonna give me a swelled head!” Harry protested. “I’m not- I don’t do anything any other EMT wouldn’t do-“

“-including dismissing anyone who had to leave,” said James, with a little ‘and there you have it’ sort of handwave and a significant look in Franklin’s direction.

“James-“

“Um,” said Harry, raising his hand.

 

Both Fitzjames and Franklin’s mouths shut like surprised bear traps. Harry lowered his hand apologetically.

 

“Er, sorry for interrupting. I don’t mean to pry, but I’m just trying to follow along-“

“Get out with it,” said James, though he gave Harry a bluff little pat on the arm that Harry assumed was supposed to be reassuring.

“Did you and Mr. Crozier used to- you know-“

 

James’s eyebrows shot up as though they were springloaded.

 

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s nothing personal-“ Harry blurted. “You just sound like you used to be a-“

“Oh, no,” said James. “No, no.”

 

Franklin had the most careful lack of expression Harry had ever seen. He wasn’t sure which emotion Franklin was trying to suppress, but there was definitely something he was keeping a lid on.

 

“God, no,” said James. “Wow. No.”

 

***

What Tess Blenkinhorn had just said, while affectionately slapping the side of a generator a good five feet taller than she was, was “God, would you just listen to her purr!”

 

Unfortunately for Crozier, all he could hear over the roar was the disjointed sound of Tess’s voice.

“What was that?”

“I said, listen to that p-“

“What?”

“Listen to tha-“

“I can’t hear you!”

 

Tess shook her head and cupped a hand around one ear to indicate that she, too, was effectively deafened by the sound of the generator, and waved a hand for Crozier to follow her away from it. She was always a little too fast for him, even with her prosthetic leg, but Crozier was used to it.

 

“Now,” said Crozier, as they crunched out onto the layer of snow covering the ground as far as they could see in pretty much every direction, “what were you trying to say back there?”

“Dumb shit. Small talk. You would have hated it,” Tess said, with a knowing grin, as she tucked her hands in their thick fingerless gloves into the pockets of her anorak. She was hatless, but had pulled back her wiry, graying hair in a way that just barely covered the tips of her ears, which Crozier assumed must have kept them warm enough. It also showed her dangling fork-shaped earrings to good advantage.

 

Crozier didn’t respond to that, though his right eyebrow did. Tess lifted both of hers in response.

“You hate most things. Seemed like a fair guess.”

“I do not hate most things-“

“When's the last time you've liked anything?”

 

Crozier opened his mouth.

“Something that’s not whiskey,” Tess said dryly.

“I was going to say dogs-“

“Real fuckin’ sunshiney of you.”

“Fine,” said Crozier. “I like- all right, I like you- oh, come on, don’t laugh, I flew to New York, twice, for you and Esther-“

“-once for the partnership ceremony, once for the wedding,” Tess finished in unison with him. “And you hated it.”

“I hated it significantly less than most things,” Crozier said stiffly.

“That’s not much from you, bud.”

“What do you want me to say, Blanky?” Crozier demanded, spreading his hands helplessly. “Look at this place. Look at these people-”

 

He gestured broadly out at the camp. Most of the guests so far were inside their domes, but a few were out on the flat, snowy patches of plain between them, shapeless in their thick coats and knit hats, throwing snowballs like children or dancing along to music pumping out of Bluetooth speakers.

 

“Most of them could be my children,” Crozier said, watching them, “and I’m probably even further out of touch.”

“You gotta get laid to get laid to have kids, Francis,” Tess reminded him. Crozier scowled.

 

As they pressed on, the music became clearer, and a pair of young people came staggering along, day-drunk or worse, arms over one another’s shoulders like three-legged racers, jubilantly belting slightly out of sync.

 

“Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you… there’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do…”

 

Crozier jabbed an accusing finger at them as they passed and rounded on Tess like an offended vulture.

 

“You see what I mean?” he protested. “This song wasn’t even that big when it came out-“

“They’re just kids,” Tess reminded him. “It's their right to be dumbasses. Might as well let them have their fun before they turn into crotchety shits like us.”

“Yeah, well,” Crozier said, moodily hunching his shoulders and shoving his hands down into his pockets. “What’s that they’re saying now? ‘Life comes at you fast’?”

 

He was about to take a step forward when he saw a streak of yellow in the snow. Crozier stumbled back to avoid stepping in it, holding his arm back to keep Tess away too, and realized it was more like a little constellation of yellow streaks. Together, they spelled out a an uppercase EC.

 

“Huh,” said Tess. “They’ve got pretty sweet aim, whoever it was.”

“Fucking disgusting,” Crozier muttered. “I don’t envy the cleanup crew coming after us.”

 

Something in his pocket chimed. Crozier looked at Tess, who shrugged a little toward his pocket- probably your phone- before hers made the same noise. Exchanging troubled looks, they fished them out.

 

EXTREME WEATHER STATEMENT, said the little green box on Crozier’s phone. From the look Tess gave him, hers must have said the same thing.

 

“You think we should bring this to-“

“Yeah,” said Crozier. “Yeah, he’d better have a look at this.”

 

***

 

By the time Crozier and Tess arrived, having asked a succession of baffled-looking young assistants and interns where to find Franklin and working up the totem pole until they finally got a straight answer from his personal assistant, John Bridgens, a steady and reliable man Crozier supposed was probably older than he himself was, James Fitzjames was leaning back in his seat and knee-deep in yet another interminable story about his prior experiences.

 

“-so I said, well, how am I to keep track of how long they’ve been apart? She hadn’t written a song about that one yet, I didn’t think it would be too much trouble sitting them together- my mistake, of course.”

 

He laughed in what was probably supposed to be a self-deprecating manner and was about to begin again when Crozier aggressively cleared his throat. Fitzjames blinked owlishly and glanced over at Franklin in irritation.

 

“Never mind, I’ll finish later,” Fitzjames said coolly. “The life of the party has arrived.”

 

Crozier smiled thinly. Fitzjames seemed to deliberately brighten his in response. The EMT in attendance- Goodsir, Crozier remembered from the day before- looked between them and slowly hunched down in his seat.

 

“Ah, Francis,” said John Franklin. “Have a seat! How is it going out there? Ms. Blenkinhorn, it’s a delight to see you as well-“

“We need to talk, John,” Crozier cut in.

 

Tess unfolded a cheap metal chair from the folded stack in the corner and lowered herself down behind him, looking from the others to Crozier again as though silently pleading for none of them- Crozier included- to do anything stupid.

 

“Is it the weather report? We all got it too. It’s for some distance south of here,” said Franklin. “They cast those out fairly widely, after all.”

“The roads are south of here, too,” Crozier retorted. “The very same roads most of the rest of the guests bound for this festival are going to be traveling up. It’s our main way back to the Twin Cities, for that matter. We haven’t even got all of our supplies yet.”

“This is Minnesota, Francis,” said Fitzjames. “These people are used to iced-over roads-“

“First of all, I did not give you permission to call me Francis,” said Crozier, who did not even notice that Harry Goodsir had opened his mouth to comment on his own familiarity with icy roads and then shut it again as soon as Crozier had begun to speak. “And secondly, we’re not talking about Minnesotans, we’re talking about jumped-up little Silicon Valley idiots coming out here to drop acid and pretend they have spirit animals.”

“Francis,” said Franklin.

 

Tess and Harry exchanged worried looks in sudden solidarity, but Crozier only moodily looked up at Franklin, one eyebrow lifted. James Fitzjames reached into a pocket in his own vest and pulled out a small packet of Airborne, which he tipped into his bottled water and shook with the cap on to blend. The water turned a murky, semi-opaque bright orange, and he drank it with a faint grimace, watching from over the bottle.

 

Franklin had the obliging yet curiously firm smile of a 50s television patriarch.

 

“We’re at least 25 kilometers from the nearest town center,” said Crozier. “If anyone else starts up here and gets caught in that storm-“

“Are you suggesting we cancel?” Franklin said in horror. “We’ve sunk so much into this-“

“God damn it,” Crozier snapped, banging his fist on the table and sending a geyser of Battleship pieces flying. “They’re still talking about that disaster in the Bahamas this last spring-“

“This isn’t Fyre Festival,” said James Fitzjames. “Don’t be so dramatic. We’ve confirmed everything-“

“Yeah, well, Mother Nature’s doing her best to unconfirm it,” Crozier snapped. “You’d know that if you’d ever done anything more complex than trying to remember who Taylor Swift has or hasn’t just broken up with!”

 

Fitzjames glared for a moment, and then visibly pulled himself up again. “You’d be surprised by how complex that is. It borders on the scientific.”

 

He looked around the table as though expecting a laugh, but no one did. Franklin coughed and leaned forward in his seat.

 

“Francis,” he said, “either way, it’s a disaster. Canceling at a time like this might as well be Fyre-level mismanagement-“

“Not so much as it would be to try to carry on as usual and end up with techwads piled up on the sides of the road from here to Duluth,” said Crozier. “Haven’t you noticed? There are scarcely even towns to be found in this part of the state. This land wasn’t cleared for our use without reason.”

“Then we reschedule,” said Fitzjames.

 

Franklin looked at him in surprise. The younger man grimaced apologetically.

 

“I’m going to owe a lot of people a lot of favors,” Fitzjames grumbled, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he shot Crozier another dark look. “But you have a point.”

“You’re damned right I have a point!” Crozier bellowed.

“Oh, here we go-“

“Francis, James,” Franklin began, holding his hands between them.

“Francis,” Tess hissed.

 

Crozier glared over his shoulder at her with such vehemence that Tess rolled her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose, muttering “okay… okay…”

 

Fitzjames had straightened in his seat when Crozier turned around again. Franklin sighed and spread his hands.

 

“Well, it appears I am outvoted. We’ll have to sort out what to tell the early guests, and soon.”

“You can tell them they all get an extra hour in the ball pit, for all I care,” Crozier said acidly. “I would rather be known for being too cautious and gambling with investors’ money than gambling with their lives.”

“Then I suppose we roll out the morning after tomorrow,” Franklin said, wearily pushing himself up from the table. “Good God. Francis, a word…?”

“Francis,” Tess said again, in a louder voice this time.

 

He did not look at her as he followed Franklin, who had all of thirty remaining hours on this Earth left, away from the med tent. James Fitzjames exhaled heavily, somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

 

“Well, Harry,” he said, “it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance nonetheless. I’ll make sure you still get your promised daily rate.”

 

Harry, who had been sitting there in vague shell-shock from his front-row view of these proceedings, blinked a few times.

 

“Oh,” he said. “That’s real good of you. Thank you, sir.”

“Harry,” Fitzjames said, mock-seriously.

“Oh, right,” said Harry. “James.”

 

Fitzjames nodded and stood, pausing uncomfortably with his hand on his lower back and a pensive look on his face for a moment. He shrugged this off just as quickly, gave Tess a nod in turn, and stepped out of the tent as well.

 

“Fuckin’ a,” said Tess.. “Hey! Fitz-“

 

She couldn’t help limping a little at this speed in the snow, but she managed to catch up with him a few yards away, clapping her hand on his shoulder to catch him before he could get much further. Fitzjames whirled around in surprise, quickly shoving his sunglasses back into position.

 

“Sorry to grab you like that,” said Tess, “but we need to talk.”

“Blenkinhorn, right?”

“Tess is fine. Blanky, if you're nasty,” said Tess. “Look-“

“Right,” said Fitzjames. “John told me a bit about you. He says this is far from your first rodeo-“

“Yeah,” Tess said impatiently. “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, left dirty graffiti in the bathroom. That’s why I wanted to talk to you- any of you, since Francis blew me off, but you’ll have to do-”

“Flattering,” said Fitzjames.

“You’ll live,” Tess said flatly.

“What is it that you wanted, then-”

“You can't just pack everyone the fuck up and leave,” Tess said.

 

Fitzjames took an involuntary step back. The change in her demeanor had activated his flight or fight response, but both options seemed rather rude at the moment.

 

“I don't enjoy it either,” he said, “but unfortunately Crozier is right. We have to-”

“Oh, damn straight he's right about the leaving,” said Tess. “But they're not going to be too happy about it unless you throw them a bone or two.”

“If they want refunds, they'll have them,” said Fitzjames.

“Do you think refunds are going to do them any good stuck out here?” Tess retorted. She tipped her chin down and looked at him from under her eyebrows. Fitzjames’s stomach did a show-motion somersault of unease.

“You speak of this with some authority,” he said, after a long silence. “Er- let's walk together. I'm eager, I promise, to learn from your experience.”

 

Tess shoved her hands down in her pockets and rollicked alongside him, giving him an appraising look.

“See,” she said, “the issue with you is that you’re a fella who can handle disappointment. I can tell from how you kept your cool back there.”

“Thank you,” said Fitzjames.

“You're a talent wrangler, right?”

“I suppose that does encourage a way with people,” he said.

“See, you're used to only one screaming fit at a time, I'm guessing,” Tess said. “You've never seen what happens when the kind of entitlement these type of kids are living with goes to shit.”

 

Fitzjames frowned from behind his undoubtedly very expensive glasses.

 

“Do you suppose it's really that bad here?”

“I don't have to see it to know that it's there,” said Tess. “You take away their ponies and their bouncy houses, and these kids are gonna throw shitfits the likes of which you have never seen.”

“Right,” said Fitzjames, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “What kind of shitfits, as you put it-”

“We all read about Fyre Fest,” Tess said gravely.

 

Fitzjames took a deep breath, staring out into the middle distance.

 

“Noted,” he said quietly. “I’ll… I'll see what can be done.”

 

***

 

James was on the brink of knocking on John Franklin’s trailer door when a voice spoke up from about five feet to his right:

 

“He's talking to Mr. Crozier.”

 

James looked over, blinking, as he popped a Hall’s C drop into his mouth. What he had taken for a lump of blankets on a folding chair turned out to be John Bridgens’ boyfriend, Henry Peglar, cocooned in enough layers that he was reduced to a smallish patch of deceptively heavy-bearded, youthful face peering out from a gap in the flannels. He was holding an iPad, with something involving a lot of brass and cheerful singing on the screen.

 

“Ah,” said James.

“I heard about the packing-in,” Henry said. “That's rough.”

“That's actually why I’m here- Blenkinhorn had some horror stories about that sort of thing-”

“Ah, yeah,” said Henry. “John-”

“Your John, or that John-”

“My John-”

“Right-”

“-told me a little about the meeting.”

“Do you think we're still heading for a riot?” James asked quietly.

“I wouldn't know,” said Henry. “I only came to this thing because you brought John with you.”

“Your John-”

“Right.”

“There really are a hell of a lot of Johns here, aren't there?” said James. “What are you watching, anyway-”

“Oh, this is John's iPad,” Henry said, shrugging. “It's, uh, _Sweeney_ _Todd_. Not the one with Johnny Depp, it's a recording of a performance from 1980something. I'm not much of a theater person, but, you know. John likes it, so I thought I'd give it a try.”

 

James leaned over to take a better look at the screen. The cheerful singing had been replaced by the sound of bells, and a blond tenor in an old-fashioned sailor suit was wandering across the stage, singing plaintively.

 

“See,” Henry explained, as the lights came up on a grim, whitefaced baritone in an unflattering center-parted wig, “it's the 1840s, I think? And he's a barber on a revenge mission against the man who raped his wife-”

 

James gave Henry a mildly appalled look, and then glanced back just in time to see the baritone appear to graphically slit a customer's throat and release the body down a chute.

 

“Jesus-”

“Yeah, his girlfriend takes the bodies and makes them into pie filling-”

“Ah,” said James, mainly in order to have anything to say at all. “Is… that just… a thing that happens just once, a gag, or-”

“Oh, no, it's like, a plot point. They had a whole song about it a few minutes ago.”

“Early Victorian cannibalism,” James said flatly. “Charming.”

 

The door to the trailer suddenly swung open, and Francis Crozier stormed out in a poor enough mood that James could not be sure if the shoulder check Crozier gave him as he passed was malice or carelessness. John Franklin could be heard groaning inside, and stuck his head out a moment later to watch Crozier leave.

 

For a moment, there was silence, filled only by the sound of Henry's gruesome musical.

 

“And if I never hear your voice, my turtledove, my dear, I still have reason to rejoice- the way ahead is clear, Johanna…”

 

James cleared his throat.

 

“John- I wanted to talk to you before we make the announcement, if that's all right.”

“What- oh, yes, of course. Come in, James.”

 

“And in that darkness, when I'm blind with what I can't forget, it's always morning in my mind, my little lamb, my pet, Johanna…”

 

***

“Tom!” Crozier bellowed as he pulled open the door to  his trailer. “Get a whiskey ready, will you?”

Tom set aside his phone in a hurry and jumped up to help, unable to suppress a grimace of reluctance but saying nothing. Crozier sat down on the sofa with a thump and rubbed his eyes.

 

“John Bridgens texted me about everything, sir. I'm sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” Crozier muttered.

“Did something else happen?” Tom asked as he brought the glass over and sat beside him.

“No,” said Crozier. “Nothing that hadn’t already gone down. Thanks, Tom.”

 

As he tipped back the glass, Crozier’s phone dinged again, and his eyes nearly rolled back into his skull.

“God's sake. What do they want of me now?”

 

Tom, who was used to this kind of thing, opened the message himself and read aloud:

 

“To give you all a bit of groove back after the disappointment of our early cancellation, James Fitzjames is hosting a rager tomorrow night-”

“Oh, Christ. Is he referring to himself in the third person now?”

“This is actually from Le Vesconte, sir.”

“A rager, though-”

“It looks like this might just be the costume party that was already on the roster, sir. He just bumped it up to give everyone something to do before we leave.”

 

Crozier wobbled his glass back and forth with something between a shrug and a sneer.

“Well, he's welcome to it. I'm barricading myself in tomorrow and seeing how much of this whiskey I can burn off.”

“With all due respect, sir, are you sure that's a good idea?”

“Have I got anything better to do?” Crozier snapped.

“You could try to go out with the others-”

“Oh, not you as well,” Crozier snarled. “Is that all you have to add, Tom? Or have you prepared a statement of your own about what an intolerably miserable bastard I am?”

 

He leaned back and spread his arms over the back of the sofa.

 

“Well?”

 

Tom blinked a few times, his gray-blue eyes downcast with hurt. The worst part of Crozier’s drinking was the placebo effect that occurred the moment the man had a glass in his hand. Crozier didn't have to actually get dunk to be drunk- the promise of intoxication in the near future was enough on its own to make him harsh, petty and shockingly mean when he wanted to be- which, to some extent, Tom realized, was most of the time.

 

“...I think I'd better go, sir,” he said. “I'll check in with you tomorrow.”

“And miss James fitzing Fuckjames’s rager?” Crozier scoffed. “Far be it from me to keep you from that.”

“I don't plan on going, sir,” said Tom. “I had assumed I would be working. With you.”

 

He bowed his head and hurried out. Crozier watched him go, with an unfocused pang of regret that made him unhappy enough to pour another glass.

 

***

Alone in his own trailer, James Fitzjames unzipped a garment bag laid across his bed, and then the leather jacket within. It was decorated with enough enamel pins and chains that it clinked softly as he lifted it to the light.

 

Once he was certain the jacket wasn't about to fall apart- he hadn't worn it in at least fifteen years, after all- James turned to the mirror and shrugged it on, beaming at his reflection when he realized it still fit. He hadn't pulled out the rest of the costume yet, but he had already decided that if- God forbid- it turned out the years had interfered with his ability to pull it off, he could at least fall back on the jacket.

 

Still grinning at his reflection, he planted his hands on his hips and swiveled them forward. It was the wrong scene for the jacket, but as far as taking souvenir pictures went, it was probably best to go with what was recognizable.

 

After a moment of inspecting the fringe on the jacket for fraying and the lining for damage, James slipped off the jacket and bent down to unlace his snow boots in preparation for trying on the rest.

 

The moment his head came even with his knee, James’s ears filled with a hollow whooshing sound as pain bubbled straight up from his sternum to spread out along his shoulders and drag itself up his neck. His head suddenly felt as though it were under pressure and likely to burst- so much so that he lurched forward onto his hands and dry-heaved.

 

“Fuck-”

 

The sharpest part of the pain in his head dissipated, leaving a heavy throb behind his eyes in its wake. James pushed himself, gasping, into a sitting position. When he looked at his reflection again, he was genuinely startled to see he wasn't bleeding from the eyes.

 

James inhaled slowly- his breathing, he realized, was ragged- and breathed out again.

 

What the hell was this?

 

As he was about to stand, James heaved again. He thought of John Torrington puking his brains out into the Port-a-Potty the day before and blanched.

 

Good God. Con crud. Airport flu. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was an organizer’s bane. It was the kind of thing no one even wanted to speak about at an event like this, let alone admit to having- especially not while in line for managing the damned thing.

 

Well, James decided, they had a day and a half left. Nobody would need to know about this to begin with. It would be bad for morale, he told himself.

 

Pulling himself back up onto the bed, James fumbled in his vest pocket until he found his tube of Vitamin C drops. He popped one in his mouth for good measure.

 

Nobody needed to know a thing.


End file.
